Showrunner Andy Harries believes that the BBC would have found it difficult to show people like Princess Diana in later series

By Ben Dowell

Before Netflix swooped to buy the rights to hit drama series The Crown starring Claire Foy and Matt Smith, the BBC was interested in securing the rights to the show.

Andy Harries, the show’s executive producer, spoke to the BBC as well as Sky and ITV before eventually securing a generous bid from the US streaming giant.

It is believed that UK broadcasters, including the BBC, didn’t have the budget to make the sprawling royal drama, said to have cost £100 million for two series.

However, Harries says he believes the most likely British broadcaster – the BBC – would have been the wrong choice even if they were able to match the Netflix bid.

“We will never know, but I think when people see the first series of The Crown they could think, ‘It could have been on the BBC’.

“Well, yes, the 1950s is quite a long long time ago. But it’s going to get a lot more interesting in series three and four when we’re into Diana, we’re into Mrs Thatcher and we’re into all the contemporary issues that all of us remember from the last ten or 15 years. Who knows how the sensitivities of how those scripts would have fared with the closeness of the BBC and the Palace?”

A pioneer in the field of computer-generated performances with such films as Lord of the Rings (portraying Gollum) and King Kong—in which he plays Kong himself—Andy Serkis found his directorial breakthrough in The Jungle Book, which was pushed to 2018 so as not to conflict with Jon Favreau’s 2016 adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic collection of stories. But no matter—in the meantime, Serkis shot another film, Breathe, which bowed at the Toronto Film Festival this week.

Starring Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy—an Emmy frontrunner for her turn as Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown, that can’t quite process that reality at the moment—the film tells the true story of Robin Cavendish (Garfield), a young man paralyzed by polio, and Diana, the strong, brilliant woman who supported her husband through his deep depression and ultimate acceptance of his fate. With very little expectation of a long life for Robin, he and Diana elect to invent a new life for themselves, straying from Robin’s mandated hospital stay and pioneering in technology to better the lives of those suffering from this terrible condition.

Interestingly, this remarkable true story came to Serkis through his business partner at Imaginarium Productions, Jonathan Cavendish, the son of the couple on display in the film. Known for his work in very different kinds of movies, Serkis made a passionate pitch to direct the film. “Five or six years ago, we started Imaginarium [Productions]. It was a performance capture studio and a production entity with the view to creating lots of different projects, ‘next generation storytelling’ sort of projects, and then we had an old slate of films that he was wanting to make. One of these films was a film called Breathe, which he’d been working on for some time before we got together,” Serkis explains. ” I read it one night and, as most people did who read the script originally, I couldn’t stop crying. It was just so powerful, such a brilliant piece of writing, and I said to Jonathan, ‘I know I’m sort of more known for directing dwarves, goblins and creatures of Middle-earth, and jungle animals, but I really would love to direct this. What do you think?’”

“He said, ‘Absolutely’—without a blink, he just said, ‘Yeah,’” the director remembers. “So we started to develop it, and what I loved about it—what really inspired me to want to do it, actually, apart from the fact that it was the most amazing love story—was that it seemed to me to be a story about pioneering. At that point in the story when Diana says, ‘How can I make life better for you?’ and he says, ‘Get me out of here,’ from then on, they are basically creating life afresh in a way that had never been done before.” Continue reading ‘Breathe’s Andrew Garfield On “How We Can Create Lives Of Meaning And Joy” Amidst Tragedy

The ‘Lord of the Rings’ star said his drama about a real-life couple who overcome huge challenges is “about the power of love.”

Lord of the Rings star Andy Serkis on Tuesday said his directorial debut, Breathe, is an inspiring tale of struggling against adversity, not a dark take on disaster.

“We were elevating not just a story of survival, but creating a metaphor for our times, about the power of love,” Serkis said of his drama about British advocate for the disabled Robin Cavendish. The film, starring Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, follows Cavendish after he was paralyzed with polio at the age of 28 and given just three months to live.

Against all advice, his wife Diane brought him home from the hospital and inspired him to lead a long and fulfilled life. Serkis said Diane Cavendish’s staying with her husband when she had the option to leave was an act of love that lay at the foundation of Breathe.

Breathe, a film that once upon a time would have been called “a four-hanky picture” and starred Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson, could return Andrew Garfield to the Oscars as a best actor nominee — just a year after he landed his first Oscar nomination, in that category, for Hacksaw Ridge — for playing another real-life hero. And it might bring The Crown’s Claire Foy along for the ride, too, in the best actress or, more likely, best supporting actress category.

Andy Serkis’ feature directorial debut, which chronicles the life of Robin Cavendish (Garfield) — a British man who was stricken in his prime with polio but, thanks to the tireless support of his wife Diana Cavendish (Foy), son Jonathan and friends, persevered to an extent that no person with polio ever had before — premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday, leaving most of those in Roy Thomson Hall sniffling and then standing in applause when the cast and some of the people they portray were acknowledged. Continue reading ‘Breathe’ Could Return Andrew Garfield to Oscars for Second Consecutive Year

“Breathe” sets out to offer a very specific kind of emotional experience and never wavers from that goal. The swooning period piece from director Andy Serkis tracks the decades of survival by Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield), a man stricken with polio in the ’50s who survived on a breathing machine for some 40 years, and the devotion of his wife Diana (Claire Foy) who stuck by his side that entire time. It’s a gorgeous, romantic drama that earns its emotional resonance without venturing beyond the most familiar beats.

The movie may not register as the most obvious choice of a debut for Serkis, best known as Hollywood’s preeminent motion-capture performer, whose credits range from Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” to Caesar in the “Planet of the Apes” trilogy, but its elegant, old-fashioned appeal shrouds the sophisticated performance at its center. Garfield, who spends the majority of the movie moving only his head and face, gives the most ambitious performance of his career and pretty much pulls it off. The obvious precedent, Eddie Redmayne’s deteriorating physical condition as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything,” certainly has a more chamelonesque power — but Garfield’s performance resonates in its own gentler way, giving credibility to his character’s resilience that elevates the movie above the constant threat of mawkish extremes.

Serkis and screenwriter William Nicholson waste little time establishing the relationship between Robin and Diana, who meet on the road while Robin still enjoys a career in the export business. They’re still traveling around, enjoying a carefree existence, when a sudden attack leaves him bedridden and diagnosed with only a few months of life left. It’s here that Diana takes charge, keen on bringing Robin home to care for him there despite doctors’ claims that moving him will precipitate his demise. The couple’s decision to take a gamble on moving him to a more comfortable location becomes the first of several exciting moments where they take control of the situation at great risk.

Unlike Hawking, Robin isn’t some otherworldly genius when the illness takes hold, and so the scope is simpler, with the movie focusing almost entirely on his devotion to survival. From the bleak paralysis of the first act, Robin’s world keeps opening up, and in due time he’s eagerly collaborating with inventor Teddy Hall (Hugh Bonneville) to construct a mobile version of his breathing machine that liberates him from the bedroom.

The couple eventually enjoy magical sunsets across Europe, become parents, and launch spectacular careers as activists helping to improve the lives of polio victims around the world. Produced by the Cavendishs’ now-grown son Jonathan, the movie has a hagiographic air throughout, as if incapable of showing any negative aspects of the couple’s story without finding its way back to another painterly image or upbeat moment. Serkis gains confidence in the material as he moves along, speeding through the decades (and aging his young actors to less-than-credible results in the process) and eventually giving Garfield the chance to deliver a few rousing speeches to bring the drama home. Continue reading ‘Breathe’ Review: Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy Give Heartwarming Performances — TIFF

Hatfield House in Hertfordshire has stood in for Wayne Manor (Batman) and Lara Croft’s ancestral pile (Tomb Raider), as well as being the childhood home of Elizabeth I.

Today, however, the grand Jacobean manor has been transformed into both a 1970s Oxford hospital car park and the interior of a German hotel for Breathe, the remarkable true story of Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield) and his wife Diana (Claire Foy) who together battled Robin’s polio, raised their son Jonathan and helped bring about a pioneering change in the treatment and care of people with polio.

“It’s a love story, a story of triumph over adversity, and a story of somebody who loses control of their life and then gets it back,” says producer Jonathan Cavendish, who previously filmed part of Elizabeth: The Golden Age at Hatfield. But what makes Breathe unique is that it also happens to be the story of Cavendish’s parents, and he, himself, is a character in it, played by a variety of actors from baby to 20 year old (Dean-Charles Chapman).

Written by William Nicholson (Shadowlands) and directed by Andy Serkis, Breathe is one of two new films emerging from Serkis and Cavendish’s production company The Imaginarium, alongside horror-thriller The Ritual.

It also marks Serkis’s feature directorial debut. The actor, renowned for his motion-capture performances as Gollum, King Kong and Caesar in the Planet Of The Apes franchise, has directed several shorts and shot second unit on Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit films; he also directed The Imaginarium’s delayed adaptation of The Jungle Book, entitled Jungle Book, prior to Breathe but the VFX-heavy film is still in post and not scheduled for release by Warner Bros until October 2018.

Cavendish had been developing the project with Nicholson for more than a decade when he and Serkis decided in spring 2016 to make Breathe after finding that Garfield and Foy had a window of availability that coincided with their own. Just before Cannes last year, they decided to roll the dice. “We rushed off to Cannes and it was all very bracing,” recalls Cavendish. “It was a bit scary. And we’re a company with resources. It would be very difficult for a small, independent company to have done that.” Continue reading The story behind Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy disability drama ‘Breathe’

The Netflix star shares what it’s like to play Elizabeth II—and the career-defining roles she’s playing now that her time as a royal is over.

by ADAM RATHE

The British monarchy has been very good to Claire Foy. In the year since the actress first appeared onscreen as a young Queen Elizabeth II in the hit Netflix series The Crown, which in its first season followed the monarch’s glittering, tumultuous life from 1947 to 1955, she has become one of the most watched women in the world. Her career (respectable but not exactly on fire before The Crown) has skyrocketed, she has taken home a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Drama (as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award), and she is, at press time, nominated for an Emmy.

There’s only one small catch in regard to her relationship with Her Majesty. “I would hate the idea of her watching it,” Foy says.

Although some of the world’s finest performers have earned raves playing the queen, and the monarch’s life has been scrutinized for nearly 70 years, Foy is loath to think that her own performance might rankle Elizabeth. “When you’re playing a real person, you never want to be ghoulish,” she says. “I don’t want to pick apart a person. I want to invent someone. So I would hate for her to watch it and think I overdramatized anything.”

And despite reports from the occasionally reliable British tabloids that the series has indeed been viewed in the royal household, Foy swats away the notion, if only for her own peace of mind. “I decided a long time ago that she’d never see it,” she says. “If she ever rings me up and tells me that she’s watched, then I will think differently.” (For what it’s worth, Helen Mirren, perhaps the only other actress so closely associated with the queen, sent Foy a lovely e-mail.)

For the rest of us, watching Foy in The Crown the coming months will be very easy. In December will come back for a second season, picking up at the Suez Crisis in 1956, and in October Foy will take to the big screen opposite Andrew Garfield in Breathe, an affecting, astonishing film based on the true story of Robin Cavendish, a man who contracted polio at age 28 and, against all odds, went on to live a long life as an inventor and advocate for the disabled.

After that she’ll star in Unsane, a hush-hush project that director Steven Soderbergh reportedly filmed entirely on an iPhone, and First Man, director Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to La La Land, which tells the story of astronaut Neil Armstrong and features Foy as his earth-bound wife. Continue reading The Crown’s Claire Foy Won’t Be Your Queen Forever

Inspired by UK playwright Peter Morgan’s critically acclaimed 2013 play The Audience—which enjoyed a brief but successful Broadway run in 2015—The Crown proved a surprise hit for Netflix when the series debuted in November of last year. Starting with the marriage of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II to Prince Philip in 1947, a scant few years before her coronation at the age of 25 in 1952, the 10-part first season served as an origin story for the world’s longest reigning monarch.

It also offered an introduction to actress Claire Foy, who—along with co-stars John Lithgow, as Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Matt Smith, as her husband Prince Philip—received glowing reviews for her performance, which earned her a Golden Globe just over two months after Season 1 aired. In December, the story will continue, acquainting Her Majesty with dangerous affairs in the Middle East and a more embarrassing scandal closer to home.

How did this part come to you?

It started the usual way – I got sent the script. It was slightly tempered by the fact that I was five months pregnant at the time [in the fall of 2014]. So when my agent mentioned it, I was like, “Do you really think I want to have a three-month-old baby and do a nine-month TV series while I play The Queen of England? Are you insane?” [laughs] So I was reticent about it. But my agent said, ‘They just want to talk to you.”

So I went, and it was nice, and they said, “Would you mind coming back and maybe doing a test?” I thought I’d have to go to LA, because it was Netflix, so I said, “Well, that’s not going to happen, because I can’t fly anymore,” but they said, “No, we can do it in London.” So I went back, and Stephen Daldry and I went over a few different scenes. Then they said, “Do you want to do it?” So it was a bit of an odd experience because at no point did I really consider it a serious possibility. And at no point did I really think that I would be who they were looking for.

What were they looking for in your audition? Were they looking for somebody with a strong resemblance to The Queen?

No. Well, we did do a costume fitting, but obviously, with a giant baby bump it was hilarious, because I was wearing a gown and a wig and a crown—I looked like a pregnant toddler. I think, knowing them now, they just wanted someone to discover [the part] with. It was very open. Maybe because I was pregnant, I was just very relaxed. Then, in November, they told me that I’d got it, and we started shooting in the July the following year. We knew that it was commissioned for two series from the off, and that we’d shoot all 10 episodes in one fell swoop. There was going to be no pilot.

What kind of research did you do?

Oh God. I can’t really remember. I think I did what I usually do, which is to buy thousands of documentaries and watch them all, because you can pretend it’s work. And then I got loads of books and read them. Actually, I had a very long time to get used to the idea of playing the Queen. I’ve never really had that before, actually—that expanse of time to get into character. Then we started working with a voice coach, William Conacher, who’s a genius—we couldn’t have made The Crown without him. It all happened very slowly, which was probably a benefit. There was no pressure to make any sudden, mad choices. Continue reading Claire Foy, From ‘Crown’ Jewels To Golden Globe And Beyond

Claire Foy could not be more thrilled that her Netflix hit, The Crown, has been nominated for 13 Emmy awards.

“It’s such an honor,” the actress — who is nominated outstanding lead actress in a drama series — says in the current issue of PEOPLE.

Foy, 33, is looking forward to reuniting with her castmates at all the parties surrounding the Sept. 17 awards show.

But the U.K.-based star, who has a 2-year-old daughter, has another reason she’s excited to head to Los Angeles in a few weeks.

“I live in London and I have a child, so getting on a transatlantic flight and having my hair and makeup done and getting to wear a beautiful dress and have a night out is amazing,” says Foy. “It’ll be magic — aside from the jet lag!”

The upcoming second season, which will cover the Queen’s reign from 1956 to 1964, will be the last for Foy and costar Matt Smith.

‘The Crown’ Season 2: The Real Cost Per Episode, Elizabeth Faces ‘Attack on Monarchy,’ and More Details Revealed

Showrunner Peter Morgan sets the record straight on the show’s budget — and why he hates those “Downton Abbey” comparisons.

By Anne Thompson

Peter Morgan (“The Queen”) has long divided his time between playwriting, screenwriting, and television. But having just wrapped the second 10-episode season for Netflix’s “The Crown” (December 8), the executive producer and showrunner is now wholly devoted to a new genre that he calls “cinematic television.”

It’s not a difficult transition. “The Crown” has the scale of a big-budget production (Netflix paid in advance for two seasons, as well as bonuses to buy out all future royalties), as well as serious awards gravitas: The first season scored a Golden Globe win for Claire Foy and now has 13 Emmy nominations, and could win the fierce contest for Best Dramatic Series.

While Netflix doesn’t confirm budgets, Morgan wants to set the record straight: the show did not cost $100 million per 10-episode season (that’s the level of “Rome,” “Westworld,” or “American Gods”) but rather a still-hefty $6 million-$7 million per episode for 20 episodes, or about $130 million.

However, money isn’t what makes the show; it’s what money can buy you, like a bespoke suit on Savile Row. However, merging the standards of a feature film into television, which requires multiple episodes of specific lengths on a strict schedule, is more like, say, creating custom-fit pairs of Nikes.

“There’s a feeling that you are making a bespoke suit made-to-measure,” said Morgan of feature filmmaking. “But in television, it’s off the peg and more industrialized for a production line. That’s why films were more special, because you could feel the attention and the bespokenness — the longer time to think about things and time spent to fix things in post. This is one of the reasons why people are watching more television, right? The scale, but also the boutiqueness, that episodes are honed and refined.

“But at the same time,” he added, “the companies are expecting delivery to old television schedules. So they’re expecting new levels of quality, but on old timetables. They want it every year, and to be making television at this level.”

This, he said, is why he bristles at comparisons with “Downton Abbey,” the last period British import with plummy-accented aristocrats in lofty drawing rooms.

“The difference is in the way we make it,” said Morgan. “This is something new. The biggest challenge of doing the show is that I’m stuck in the middle of two huge expectations, both of which are mutually contradictory, and in conflict with one another. We are now in an age with the budgets to produce properly cinematic television, that we are now making.” Continue reading ‘The Crown’ Showrunner Peter Morgan Previews Season 2

Emmy Wrap Magazine: Queen of Netflix reflects on her two-season run as Britain’s long-reigning monarch

By Matt Donnelly

By the time you read this, Claire Foy’s reign as Queen Elizabeth II will be over.

She’s just wrapped the second season of the lush Netflix drama “The Crown,” and QEII will be played by a different actress as the show skips a few decades ahead for season three. But before that happens, you’ll have another batch of Foy episodes before the streaming giant coronates her successor.

For now, it’s a celebration of the current incarnation of “The Queen,” which landed 13 Emmy nominations for its first season and has become a powerful contender for top awards.

“The first season was highly emotional, and this time around I’ve been able to enjoy the differences between me and her a bit more,” Foy told TheWrap from London, speaking of Queen Elizabeth herself.

The world’s longest-sitting monarch had turbulent beginnings, as the first season of Peter Morgan’s series illustrated. It kicked off in 1947, with Foy briefly playing Princess Elizabeth — a newlywed to the misbehaving Prince Philip (Matt Smith) who rushes from her home in Malta to the English bedside of her ailing father King George VI (Jared Harris).

“It’s very difficult to play someone who everyone has a preconception about and not sort of let that in–it’s hard enough alone to imagine yourself as the queen,” Foy said. She clearly pulled it off, winning the Golden Globe and SAG Awards and landing her first Emmy nomination as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

Foy said she avoided the intimidation factor by “anchoring” her performance around the death of King George and the ripple it sent through the house. That building also contained her sister Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and her grandmother Queen Mary.

“It was there in Peter’s writing, and I knew early on that the crux of the whole story was the fact that her father died,” she said. “It was an earthquake. Suddenly there were four women without this man, who had been the love of all their lives.”

As of now Claire Foy is a well-known name, and in truth she’s been fairly well known for a while. She’s an award-winning actress and a true talent on the screen and on TV. One would kind of assume she’d have to be, especially now since she’s playing one of the more important roles of her career in the series The Crown. In this series she’s playing none other than Queen Elizabeth and is at the moment in the first ten years of her reign, a most tumultuous time indeed. Yet despite the difficulty and necessarily strict routine of the role Foy is taking it all in stride and doing her absolute best, which is to say she’s nailing with as much grace and dignity as she can afford, which is considerable.

Here are just a few things you may or may not have known about Claire Foy.

5. She graduated from the Oxford School of Drama.

A lot of great actors have at least passed through this school in their time, but Foy took a single course that allowed her to graduate in 2007 and then she was on her way without hesitation. She gained a deep love for acting early on and kept at it until she finally found her calling and simply went for it. The level of dedication she has to her craft is astounding really.

4. She was filming The Crown four months after giving birth.

Four months actually isn’t quite that bad to go back to what you love to do so long as the birth wasn’t difficult or a C-section. Even with the latter however going back to work could be done in as little as 2 months. Speaking from experience the longer a mother sits around and does nothing the more likely it is that they will go stir crazy. It’s not a matter of loving their children any less, it’s a matter of wanting to work and provide for those children.

3. She’s a big Springsteen fan.

She might not have been been born in the USA but she can certainly sing along with the song since she is a big fan of The Boss. That’s actually kind of funny considering how ironic it is that a woman who plays the queen of England loves listening to a singer that’s known as The Boss.

2. She’s only 13 years younger than the woman who plays her mother on The Crown.

Makeup and acting can do wonders to make someone look younger or older than they really are, but this little tidbit was kind of interesting. Back in the medieval ages I can only imagine that such a thing would be possible. Thank goodness for progress.

1. She knows every line of Pride and Prejudice by heart.

She fully admits that she has seen the film from front to back and back to front enough times to speak every line verbatim. Good on her actually if this is true, it shows she has some sense of culture and class.

She’s been more of a TV star than a film legend, but thus far Claire Foy has shown that she wealth of acting talent.

“It’s six degrees of separation,” said Nicole Kidman, of her connection to Claire Foy. The two women had gotten to know each other when Kidman was on stage in London with Foy’s husband, Stephen Campbell Moore, in a production of “Photograph 51.” But it’s their TV roles that have everyone talking — Kidman as an abused wife in HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” and Foy as the reluctant Queen in Netflix’s “The Crown.”

The actresses open up to Variety about the roles that may win them Emmy gold.

Congratulations on your Emmy nominations. What do they mean to you?

Nicole Kidman: I’m absolutely over the moon, because obviously this is something that from conception all the way to now has been my baby and to see it get acknowledged in this way is extraordinary. It’s good to have all of the cast and all of the production and the director and everyone’s nominations. It just makes for a sort of joyous celebration.

Claire Foy: I feel the same. I think it feels a bit surreal because we finished shooting the second (season) of “The Crown” now, so it feels like we’re at the end, even though (the Emmy nomination) is about the first series. So exactly the same as Nicole really, that so many people from the show have been nominated, but it’s just a lovely excuse for everyone to get back together again and celebrate something that was so lovely to do. You get to celebrate it in a way where we can all go, “Hooray!”

What do you each look for in a part? What makes you say yes to any given role?

Kidman: For me, it changes every time. It can be a director, it can be the actual character and the journey of that character, it can be a small role in a film that I feel is really compelling. It can be because it’s being directed by a woman, or it’s written by a woman, it can be because my friend’s starring in it. There’s so many different reasons I do things. But, I suppose the underlying current for me is the idea of not doing something I’ve done before. I call myself a character actor and I’m always trying to stay a character actor.

Foy: I’m one of those people where I don’t really know what it is really until it’s front of me, and I have definitely said no to things that on paper would make a lot of sense. Or would be a really great part, but for some reason, I don’t feel like I’m the right person for that part or I don’t understand it in the same way as other things. That’s not to say I’ve done things that I completely understand, because the majority of my jobs, I’ve been terrified about not really getting to the heart of it or struggling to. I’m realizing the more jobs I do and as my career goes on that there seems to be a theme of choosing the things I’m most scared of doing in a weird way. I’ve never really taken a job and not been scared of some sort of aspect of it. It’s the challenge of it, I think. Continue reading Nicole Kidman and Claire Foy on Formidable Female Roles and Collaborating With Male Showrunners

Claire Foy has spent most of the last two years playing Queen Elizabeth for the Emmy-nominated Netflix period drama “The Crown,” wearing tiaras and tartan, acting with the utmost reserve and enduring loads of questions about whether playing a monarch improves one’s posture.

On the latter front, Foy laughs off any illusions of regality, happily slouching in a leather chair throughout a leisurely interview at Netflix’s curated Emmy promotional space in Beverly Hills. Fresh off a transatlantic flight, London to Los Angeles, Foy is famished, devouring a Twix bar, only to find, minutes later, that somehow the chocolate worked its way into the designer trousers she borrowed for the evening event, a Q&A with costar Matt Smith and James Corden at the film academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater across the street.

“I’m such an idiot!” Foy shouts. “I’ve got chocolate on my bum!”

“You know,” she adds, after a couple of minutes of light dabbing averts the crisis, “if they were my own clothes, I wouldn’t be bothered. I’d be, like, ‘Eh. Who cares?’ Personally, my main use of clothes is if I can wipe my hands on it.”

Foy, Oxford-trained, extraordinary as Anne Boleyn in the 2015 BBC adaptation of “Wolf Hall,” Emmy-nominated for her quiet, controlled portrait of Elizabeth on “The Crown,” immediately comes across as an earthy sort. Having just finished shooting the second season of Netflix’s royal drama — each 10-episode run took nine months to film — she has no immediate plans to work (“I can’t even contemplate doing anything at all”) and eagerly shares two pressing, personal goals for her time off.

“I’d really like to go rock climbing, not rock climbing like Tom Cruise hanging off a mountain, but, because I’m not physically strong or muscle-y, I’d like to take that challenge, just a wall, you know,” Foy says. “And I’m going to fly a plane for the first time. I love being in the sky, but I also have a fear of flying. So it’s a weird fascination.”

The actress chats with THR about parting ways with the role of Queen Elizabeth, which the Netflix drama will recast next season.

When Claire Foy signed up to star in The Crown, she knew she’d only be playing Queen Elizabeth for two seasons. But the news may have come as a shock to many viewers of the Netflix drama who came to love the breakout actress’ portrayal of the young Royal.

“I’m quite philosophical about these things and I think the amazing thing about the show is the fact that it will go on and that it hasn’t ended badly. It’ll go on and have another life,” Foy tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I can’t wait to watch it and I just think whoever they get to play that part, they’ll be extraordinary. I will never watch it with any sense of bitterness or regret. I will feel what I will feel now, which is so happy and lucky for the experience.”

Foy hopped on the phone with THR to further discuss what it feels like to leave the character behind as the drama looks to recast an older actress, her upcoming film with Damien Chazelle and how she’s adjusting to her newfound fame.

Since you wrapped shooting on the second season, do you get a bit of break now?

Well, we didn’t have much of a break because we went and did reshoots. So I went to New York for a bit and came back and did reshoots. But then now it’s officially done and so I’m just at home being mom and getting my washing done and seeing some plays. It’s amazing suddenly having that because it’s been two years of my life. I’m now catching up, which sounds dull but actually it’s really exciting. (Laughs.)

You had your first child right before the first season of The Crown. What was it like diving into motherhood and the show at the same time?

Yeah, I never would’ve planned it that way, but then I suppose that’s life. I had no idea it was going to pan out like that. But I think becoming a mother for the first time is a whirlwind in any situation that you’re in. I think mine was just slightly more mental in a sense that I was working long hours and my baby came with me to work, and not everybody has that luxury. So it was such a different way of working. I had been working for about 10 years before I had a child, so I knew the parameters as far as that was concerned, but I suppose this was the biggest job I had done up until that point. So I was aware going into it that it was quite a lot to take on and I think I’m only realizing now coming out of it just how much pressure I put myself under unnecessarily. (Laughs.) But I think all mothers at a certain point look back and go, “God, I was mad. Why did I stay up until 4 o’clock in the morning making puréed food? What was I doing?” I buy it. They have a packet. But that’s just what you do because this is the guilt, the amazing guilt. The amazing, amazing mother’s guilt.

You were able to bring her to set with you most of the time, yes?

Yeah, I mean, especially because I fed her for a good year, so she sort of had to be. But to be honest, film sets are not particularly interesting places for anyone other than the people who are making the film to be. My sister once came on set and she will never come again. She was like, “This is the most boring thing I’ve ever done.” (Laughs.) And I’m like, “Yeah, see. See. We’re in a car park in London.” So I think it’s only fun for a certain amount of time. Continue reading Claire Foy Talks Moving on From ‘The Crown’: “It’ll Go On and Have Another Life”

Claire Foy received her first Emmy nomination on Thursday for a role that she’s already done playing.

The British actress originated the role of Queen Elizabeth II in “The Crown,” the Netflix drama that earned 13 nominations, including Ms. Foy’s for best lead actress in a drama series. Shooting has finished on Season 2, which will debut later this year, and any later seasons will feature a new actress in the role as the character ages.

“It’s still very much like it’s part of my life because it hasn’t aired yet and there’s still some postproduction,” Ms. Foy said Thursday. “When I start my next job I’ll kind of go, ‘Aww.’ That will be the moment it’s over and I know I’ll never play her again.”

Ms. Foy called from London to discuss the nomination, Season 2 of the drama and what Queen Elizabeth II has in common with James Bond. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Why do you think “The Crown” resonated beyond Britain?

I think this family is universal in the sense that people around the world have grown up with them, and been caught up in their family dramas and their lives, and how they changed through time as the world changed. A lot of Americans said to me that after the election, it was, not a relief, but kind of an enjoyable escape about the making of a society and how politics works.

President Trump and Queen Elizabeth II have different leadership styles.

I think that was probably the escapism part.

What was it like to inhabit someone so famous, who has been a presence throughout your entire life?

Los Angeles Times – Claire Foy was no stranger to period dramas before portraying Queen Elizabeth II on Netflix’s “The Crown,” having played Anne Boleyn in the miniseries “Wolf Hall” as well as performing in a recent revival of “Upstairs Downstairs.” Perhaps that familiarity is what made her performance such a standout on “The Crown,” which earned 13 Emmy nominations, including Foy’s first in the lead actress in a drama category.

Where are you? Sounds like you’re outside.

I am in Hampstead Heath in London; it’s this big park. I was here when I got the news. My publicist was the first to contact me, and then it was just loads of people — lots of Americans — were contacting me. It’s the middle of the day there, whereas here, people are having dinner and stuff. It’s been lovely.

How are you going to celebrate?

Uh… I don’t… know. I think I’ll probably just save my celebrating when we actually can all get together at the Emmys and sit down and have a good ol’ drink. I’ll bottle up my celebration until September.

That sounds like something that queen would say. That’s a lot of willpower.

Ha! I’ll wait until the big party. I’m not really mad keen with the idea of celebrating, myself, that way we can all celebrate each other and pat ourselves on the back.

You wrapped production on Season 2. How has it been inhabiting this role? Are people recognizing you, or does the period garb make it easier for you to go unnoticed in real life?

We’ve been so overwhelmed by the reaction the show has received. But I don’t really get stopped on the street, to be honest. But most of the reaction I do get is the frantic question of: “When is the next one coming out?”

I also get people who want to blame you because they lost 10 hours of their life. They’ll be like: “I watched it all in one day!” You’re not really sure if you should say, “Thank you” or “I’m sorry.” It’s quite funny that people want to let you know that you took away their time. It just shows that people really appreciate it and enjoy it.

Going into Season 2, was there a greater ease in channeling Queen Elizabeth?

I think you could say it was easier, but at the same time, it’s harder in a way because you have to guard against thinking you know everything about her. All the directors and Peter Morgan really kept on top of us because they didn’t want us to rest on our laurels. And the storylines were more in-depth and complicated. We really felt comfortable, but at the same time tried not to get too comfortable.

How are the corgis?

I love the corgis, but when they’re on set, all bets are off. The corgis have complete creative control. We let them run free. If they want to take a scene in a particular direction, we’ll follow them.

Who are you excited to see on the big night? I really want a selfie of you with the “Stranger Things” kids.

Oh, I love them. They’re amazing. And they’re always the life of the parties, as well. It’s ridiculous. They’re there dancing until like 3 o’clock in the morning. I feel like an absolute ancient old lady next to them. Like, I’m trying to dance and they’re out there being like Justin Timberlake. And I’m a mother trying to dance next to them. But it would be lovely to see them again.

“I’m continually kind of surprised by how much people have loved the show.”

by YOHANA DESTA

Claire Foy has to preserve her phone battery, because it’s dying and she’s far from home. Oh, and she just got an Emmy nomination, which means her line is going to be ringing off the hook for the next several hours. On Thursday morning, the star was tapped for best actress in a drama series for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s sumptuous series The Crown. Foy, who is currently in London, did not watch the nomination livestream, instead preferring to go for an early evening stroll in Hampstead Heath.

“I just got a text message about it, which was lovely,” she tells Vanity Fair.

It’s Foy’s first nomination, and the first of several nominations for the series, which was highlighted in multiple other categories—including outstanding drama series, directing, costume design, and more, as well as an acting nod for her co-star John Lithgow. “Amazing!” Foy says when she’s told, unaware until now of the show’s eventful Hollywood morning. She does let out a small “aw” when she finds out that co-star Jared Harris, who turned in a heartrending performance as King George VI, wasn’t nominated for his work. “It’s so difficult,” she says diplomatically of the Emmys process.

So, how will Foy celebrate her first-ever Emmy nod? By . . . not doing anything, really. “I won’t do any big celebration or anything like that. I’ll just walk across this bloody park for the next few minutes, probably—I’m trying to get out!”

As for how she would celebrate if she was channeling the character she plays? That would also be . . . a lot of nothing, really. “She’d just play it all down,” Foy muses. “I think, that’s her style. She’d just crack on.”

What about the next season of The Crown—which will also be Foy’s last, as Season 3 will jump ahead in the queen’s life? The actress can’t say much about the plot, but she does note that she’s excited for viewers to see the way the show approaches Elizabeth “coming into her middle age.”

“I’m constantly kind of surprised by her . . . she’s like all of us as you get older and as you change through life,” the actress says. “It’s interesting to watch how she approaches that and deals with that as a person as opposed to a monarch.”

Though it was rumored by an insider that the high-profile royal has actually watched The Crown, Foy doesn’t think that’s true, saying she’d prefer to “err on the side of no.”

“The only person who knows is her,” she adds. “I don’t have any direct communication with her, so I’ll never know.”

Mere mortals might also never know if the monarch decides to keep an eye on how The Crown performs at the Emmys this September—though the visual of Queen Elizabeth II tucking into an awards show makes Foy laugh.

Thursday morning, Claire Foy received an Emmy nomination for her performance in Netflix drama The Crown, where she plays Queen Elizabeth II. EW caught up with the actress to see how she reacted to the news.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This is your first Emmy nomination — you must be super excited.
I feel very, very honored and also a bit all-of-a-fluster. I’ve never been before and I can’t wait.

The Crown was nominated in a few other categories too including best drama series, best supporting actor for John Lithgow, and for best writing and directing. Will you guys be in touch to celebrate? Is there a group text?
We’ll definitely be in touch. We just finished shooting the second season so we probably won’t see each other, but it’s not long to wait — it’s only until September — and we’ll all get together and have a big old party. I’ll definitely be getting in touch with John to say congratulations. But we’ve all just worked together again for a long time so we’re sick of the sight of each other — we’ll all be like, “Yeah, yeah, see you September.”

Looking back at season 1, was there any particular scene or episode that stood out to you and made you realize how big this show was going to be?
I really loved episode 9 (“The Assassins”). I just really thought it was near perfect. That’s the episode when Churchill is having his portrait painted and where Philip and Elizabeth have a real break in their marriage and you start to see the cracks in what they’ve been through. Not that I enjoyed playing that or relished the confrontation, but I felt like I could really get into it at that point and I really enjoyed doing those scenes with Matt [Smith], and Ben Caron, who directed those episodes, was just amazing to work with.

It’s so great because, as a viewer, you’re really rooting for both of them; you want both Elizabeth and Philip to get their way. I just want them to be happy together!
I know! That’s all you want, for them to work things out, but it only gets worse in the second series. It’s like, bloody hell, it’s just awful!

They need to go on another safari and have fun.
Exactly! Go back to Africa! I think that’s why it’s so great; they’re not perfect people, and Peter [Morgan, the series creator] is really good at not trying to paint them that way. I don’t know how he writes these scenes between people who’ve got all sorts of complications and problems and all you want them to do is have a cuddle. Continue reading Claire Foy celebrates Emmy nod, teases ‘completely different’ season 2

Synopsis: The Crown focuses on Queen Elizabeth II as a 25-year-old newlywed faced with the daunting prospect of leading the world's most famous monarchy while forging a relationship with legendary Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. The British Empire is in decline, the political world is in disarray, and a young woman takes the throne....a new era is dawning. Peter Morgan's masterfully researched scripts reveal the Queen's private journey behind the public facade with daring frankness. Prepare to be welcomed into the coveted world of power and privilege and behind locked doors in Westminster and Buckingham Palace....the leaders of an empire await.

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